The Vanishing Half

I’ve been hearing about The Vanishing Half for quite awhile now. Like my last few books, it was a Goodreads Best of 2020 nominee and dealt with some of the deeper issues facing our society today. I knew it had a racial theme, but that’s all I knew about the book before I read it.

After finishing, I can honestly say this is a good book… not great for me, but definitely a strong good. I liked the characters, but I didn’t feel myself getting invested in their lives (and to me, that connection with one or more characters is what differentiates a good from a great book). I know there were characters I liked (Desiree), characters I didn’t (Stella), and characters I was ambivalent about. Yes, there were racial questions, but I feel like this book was more about acceptance than anything else. Accepting yourself and others on so many levels, deeper than just skin color, getting down to the essence of who you are and what you will do to get the life you think you want.

For some backstory, Desiree and Stella are twins who grew up in a very unique Southern town, one populated by “light” African Americans. The townspeople know that they are Black, but they value light skin so much that they continuously try to marry and produce lighter children with each generation. The book does a good job of blurring the line between what really makes someone “white” and “Black” when everyone has creamy skin. After all, there are some dark white people in the world, and light Black people, so what really is the difference?

That’s the question that Stella and Desiree grapple with. When the girls set off for New Orleans and need money, Stella decides to “cross over” and present herself as white in order to gain a higher-paying job. This single decision sets the twins on two very different paths. For the rest of their lives, both will struggle to reconcile what the world sees when they look at them, and how they see themselves. And this distortion affects both of their daughters as well. As the book moves forward in time, Desiree and Stella’s daughters meet by chance years later in California and form a bond outside of their mothers’ knowledge. Both yearn to learn about the other’s mother, their lives, and how different two twins can grow up to be.

Outside of this very obvious question of accepting one own’s racial identity, another aspect of this overall acceptance issue is the idea of accepting yourself and not being afraid to show your true self to world. This, of course, comes with risks; if you show someone your true self, will they turn away or accept you as you accept yourself? My favorite character in the book is Reece, a young man who does this exact thing. While Stella, Desiree, and their daughters seem to be playing hide-and-seek with each other and within themselves, Reece is never afraid to live his truth and put himself out there, knowing he could be hurt but at least he’s being honest.

So I did like this book and would recommend it to others. It’s a very deep and interesting read. It may not be my favorite book that I read this year, but it’s still a good one.